I would like a book to hook :)

[Polfuste]

Victor Wooten - the music lesson.

Sweet book, will make you grow musically only with reading. No need to have your bass, or your musical theory book near. Just read. A book full of wisdom.

 

[Araillac]

Ender's Game. Easily the best book I've ever read. And I don't even care much for sci-fi.

 

[SonofJud]

Surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman is a fun read.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

True that, incredible stories from and an amazing physicist!

 

[Jim Nazium]

A few off the top of my head:

Ghost Soldiers This is the true story of one of the first US Army Ranger missions, to rescue some prisoners in a Japanese POW camp near the end of WWII. Absolutely riveting.

Contact by Carl Sagan. A novel, it was made into a pretty good movie starring Jodie Foster. If you have any interest in extra-terrestrial intelligence, etc. it's a really good read.

Seven Summits The true story of the first guy to climb the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. A great adventure story.

 

[sloasdaylight]

Surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman is a fun read.

This was an excellent book.

 

[Spraeg]

+1 to both Ender's Game and Dune

It's hard to make reccommendations without knowing what you like to read, but I'd heartily suggest the Song of Ice & Fire Series by George R.R. Martin- Epic fantasy with a touch of politics, and VERY well written. I read the first one on a plane ride and couldn't wait to land to stop by the book store and get the second one.

 

[ROGI]

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale , must read.


and to Dune guys : dune, dune messiah, children of dune, god emperor of dune, heretics of dune and chapterhouse dune (that is 6 books) are written by Frank Herbert and go in same chronological order. last 3 are amazing. must read. newer (legends of dune trilogy, houses of dune trilogy, hunters of dune, sandworms of dune) dune novels are written by Herbert's son and to my opinion lack the depth, thrill and complexity of Frank's novels.


and how come noone mentioned Dan Simmons?
Hyperion cantos (hyperion, fall of hyerion, endymion and rise of endymion) is a masterpiece. complexity, suspension, hard-to-guess end, depth of characters, true masterpiece.

 

[WyrmDL]

Thanks everyone!

There are a lot of suggestions, so it might take a while to get to them. I may start with Hitchhiker's Guide because I've been wanting to read that for a while in the first place.

Victor Wooten's book also sounds incredibly interesting too.

 

[hbarcat]

Good omens is a great book. I also second Dan Brown; I read Angels and Demons (precursor to DaVinci Code) in one night. then proceeded to read it again at least twice. Awesome read.

I also cannot stress enough the awesomeness that is Orson Scott Card. The Ender and Bean Series of books are, for me anyways, nearly impossible to put down, and hold their value over successive re-readings, which is important in my mind. I'd get a hold of them if you can. It might be expensive to buy both 4 book paper back sets, but It's well worth every penny.

+11 to the Ender series by Orson Scott Card

1) Ender's Game
2) Speaker for the Dead
3) Xenocide
4) Children of the Mind


While these are classified as science fiction, they are really just great, character driven novels that happen to be set in the future.

They explore some profound topics of personal responsibility, war and peace, religion, morality, government, scientific ethics and many other issues.

 

[sloasdaylight]

+11 to the Ender series by Orson Scott Card

1) Ender's Game
2) Speaker for the Dead
3) Xenocide
4) Children of the Mind


While these are classified as science fiction, they are really just great, character driven novels that happen to be set in the future.

They explore some profound topics of personal responsibility, war and peace, religion, morality, government, scientific ethics and many other issues.

For those interested as well, chronologically, the Bean series is as follows:
Ender's Shadow
Shadow of the Hegemon
Shadow Puppets
Shadow of the Giant

 

[DudeistMonk]

While these are classified as science fiction, they are really just great, character driven novels that happen to be set in the future.

Lol you sound like Kurt Vonnegut...skirting around the word Sci-Fi like its a bad thing.

...it's a shame all that 50's cheese kinda ruined the credibility of the Sci-Fi genre before it really came into it's own.

 

[Bongolation]

Avoid Mark Z Danielewski at all costs.

Yes, along with everything else up to the point of your post, at least. But House of Leaves was at least awful in different ways than all this other garage-sale stuff.

These are incredibly depressing threads.

 

[Bongolation]

skirting around the word Sci-Fi like its a bad thing.

"Bad science and bad fiction." -- A. C. Clarke

 

[Cabazon]

Rant by Chuck Palahniuk
American Gods by Neil Gaiman

 

[DLKasim]

I also cannot stress enough the awesomeness that is Orson Scott Card. The Ender and Bean Series of books are, for me anyways, nearly impossible to put down, and hold their value over successive re-readings, which is important in my mind. I'd get a hold of them if you can. It might be expensive to buy both 4 book paper back sets, but It's well worth every penny.

I'll second that. Ender's Game is dee shiznit, as are all the others in that series. I also really enjoyed his series on Bean. However, for some reason I could never get into the Homecoming series.

I'm just coming to the end of Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series, which is also excellent.

 

[liljawn]

American Gods

 

[m_bisson]

Clive Barker... Try Weaveworld or Imagica. Don't read the descriptions first, just read the books.

 

[The Last Rebel]

I read that and the next two (chronologically) they are okay, but they don't live up to the first, and the 2nd and 3rd are very similar...Gonna try some of the house histories or something next time I read Herbert, might be cool.

I was kind of prepping myself for that honestly, I can't imagine any sequel living up to the original.

As I don't yet own the next few books in the series, I've also picked up Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Hopefully, I can have those finished by the end of summer.